


Rolling in the Deep

by glitteringconstellations



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Buried Alive, Gen, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 09:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14892392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteringconstellations/pseuds/glitteringconstellations
Summary: After a mission goes awry, Keith literally rises from a grave and must find Lance before it's too late.





	Rolling in the Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heyheroics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyheroics/gifts).



> Prompt from the [Bad Things Happen Bingo](badthingshappenbingo.tumblr.com) on tumblr. Prompt: buried alive with platonic klance for the ever-lovely **heyheroics**. You could say this one got away from me, ahahahaha.......hahaha.....haaa....... don't expect any kind of consistency in length of these prompt fills lol.

It didn’t take rocket science for Keith to realize, as he woke, that the mission had gone south.

Very, very south.

He could surmise as much from the metallic sound of gravel and sand hitting… was that aluminum? Or something similar, whatever it was that was encasing him. That, and he could see nothing, not even a couple inches past his nose. Oh, and he almost certainly had a couple broken ribs, if the white-hot agony radiating from his torso with every labored breath was any indication.

Thoughts raced through his mind a mile a minute, and he fought to pull coherent thoughts from the whirlwind. _Don’t panic. Panic uses air. Just… stay calm. Get out._ Right. Easier said than done.

A groan tore out of his throat, the last remnants of whatever they must have drugged him with clinging around the edges of his eyes. He reached his hands out blindly to feel the container, pressing his palms flat against the cool surface of it. He could feel the pressure of the debris hitting the metal over top of him beneath his fingertips. He strained his ears, listening. The sound kept coming, ringing hollowly over the distant din of talking voices.

He sucked in a sharp breath—they were _burying him_. But he was still fairly shallow. He still had time. _Get out_.

Raising his knees as high as they would go, Keith stretched and shimmied for the knife sheathed in his boot. His shoulder pressed painfully against the side of the container as he reached, straining his fingers until the tips of them met the latch at his heel. He keened, high-pitched and desperate, as the movement sent shockwaves through his broken ribs, but at last his hand closed around the hilt of the blade.

It wasn’t his Marmora blade, but it would have to do. _Get out, get out, get out._

Praying that the metal container was as malleable as aluminum as the sound made it seem, Keith drew in a deep breath, steeling himself for a fight. Then he drove his elbow through the top of it with all the force he could muster from his prone position.

One strike, two, and the lid gave way with a third with a metallic screech. The jagged edge of the container where he’d punched through lacerated his arm as he pulled back but he didn’t care, spluttering through the dirt that fell through like a sieve. He wasted no time in prying the metal back, creating an opening large enough for him to crawl through.

Startled screams rent the air as Keith forced his way upright and through the shallow layer of dirt. Blinking past the muck and the sudden shift from pitch dark to daylight, Keith caught a glimpse of his undertakers. They weren’t Galra, and though he might have heard Coran mention it once or twice, the name of this species eluded him—short and slight of stature, humanlike in build but with stiff, wrinkled skin that reminded Keith of tree bark, and beady green eyes. Most importantly, armed only with the shovels they’d been using to bury him with. These weren’t his assailants, not by a long shot.

“How…?!” one of them choked out, horrified. “They… they told us he wasn’t supposed to wake up yet!”

He almost felt bad for them, but not quite. With an strangled cry, Keith managed to get his feet beneath him and launched himself up, stabbing his blade through the foot of the nearest undertaker as he scrabbled for purchase to get out of the hole. They fell to their rump with a scream, writhing and trying to free their foot from where Keith had pinned it to the ground. The second undertaker collected theirself and brandished their shovel with a furious shout.

Keith ducked his head in time to keep from having his skull bashed in, but the spade hit square between the back of his shoulders and he choked as the air rushed out of him, his vision whiting out for a split second. They raised the shovel for a second blow and this time Keith knew they wouldn’t miss.

He couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ , give them that chance. _Get up. Get UP._

In a blink, Keith dug his feet into the side of the hole and pushed himself the rest of the way up over the ledge. His ribs screamed where he landed flat on his chest, and he couldn’t quite tamp down the groan of pain as he rolled away and the shovel came down, striking the dirt where his head had been only a second prior. Keith kicked out, sweeping the second undertaker’s feet out from under them, before he yanked the blade out from the first undertaker’s foot and plunged it mercilessly into their chest.

Static crackled in his ear, then, and a faint voice rang through. “Ca—nyone—ear me—?”

Keith froze. The gasping, dying wheezes of the first undertaker beside him seemed so far away, and the angry cries of the second didn’t even register in his ears.

_Lance._

“Lance!” Keith all but screamed, pressing his free hand to the comm in his ear to hear better as he struggled to his feet. “Lance, where are you?”

“Keit—is th—ou? It—oo dark—can’t see anyth—” His voice was so meek and panicked, even beneath the static haze.

Oh, god. They’d gotten Lance, too. Fury roiled low in Keith’s gut.

The second undertaker was back on their feet now, charging him. Keith sidestepped the blow easily, the swing sloppy and lacking any finesse. Clearly this was not a trained fighter, but Keith had no qualms in bodily slamming them to the ground, pinning them under his weight and kicking the shovel out of their grasp.

“Where is he?” Keith growled. His eyes flickered to the area around him, and it looked like there were no other signs of freshly disturbed earth other than the lot he’d just crawled from. “ _Where is he_? What have you done to him?!”

“I don’t know,” the undertaker ground out.

“You’re _lying_!” Keith snapped. The undertaker hissed and spat beneath him, and Keith pressed his knee down between what he imagined was their shoulder blades. “Tell me!”

“I _don’t know_!” they insisted, struggling against Keith’s weight. “I never saw the Blue Paladin! I only know that they captured him before you. That wasn’t my sector, I’ve been _here_ , I swear I don’t—”

“Which sector?” Keith interrupted, kneeling harder. Still the alien struggled, and a loose elbow caught Keith in the broken ribs. He cried out in sheer agony and frustration, but it wasn’t enough to loose Keith from their back. Instead he dug his knee in harder still, and if the creature’s wooden skin cracked beneath him, if they all but _squealed_ like a stuck pig, he paid it no mind.

“ _Which sector?_ ”

“37-Kleix-4,” the being choked out. “Four tacks due sun-ward.”

It wasn’t exactly a useful confession—Keith had no idea what those measurements meant. But it was a start. With a disgusted grunt, Keith coldcocked the undertaker in the back of the head, and they went still. It took a monumental effort not to cry out when he pulled himself off the unconscious alien, only just remembering to reach over and retrieve his knife from the body of their comrade. It slid out with a squelch that made Keith’s stomach turn. He decidedly looked away as he wiped the mossy-green blood on the fresh mound of soil before he straightened.

The sun was just veering off toward the far side of the horizon. Follow the sun. Got it. He paused for a moment and stopped over to pick up one of the discarded shovels, before he set off in a run, ignoring the pain that every step lanced through to his core.

_Get to Lance._

\---

Lance woke to complete and utter darkness, and for a horrifying second he feared he’d gone blind.

His temple throbbed where he’d taken a kick or three, his mangled hands a testament to how poorly he’d been able to block the blows. He hadn’t seen them coming at _all_. And, considering he was wearing the flexible Marmora suit Keith loaned him and not his usual Paladin armor, they used way more force than necessary in subduing him.

So much for stealth. Stupid Galra.

A pained moan escaped him as he shifted, still blinking through the darkness. Every muscle in his body ached to one extent or another. He put all his weight on his elbows and, taking a deep breath, made to sit up.

Only, his head smacked into something metal _painfully_ before he’d even gotten the whole of his back off the ground. Lance yelped and flopped back down, gritting his teeth against the pain. It was a solid ten seconds before clarity struck Lance. His breath hitched.

Oh no.

He could feel his broken hands trembling as he reached out in front of him. His knuckles collided with a cool surface mere inches from his face, his arm not even halfway fully extended. His breath shuddered, and he stretched his elbows out, his feet. Sure enough, his elbows touched on both sides, and his feet pressed firmly against what he was certain now was the bottom wall of this box.

Of this _freaking metal coffin_.

“Okay, Lance, don’t… don’t panic,” he said aloud, his voice high and strained. “You’re just in a box. It’s just a box. Just stay calm. You can get out of… wherever you are. Whatever you do, just don’t panic.”

The backs of his hands were probably the least injured part of them, so he tamped down the fear bubbling up to his throat and ran them along the corners of the box. There had to be hinges, right? How else would they have gotten him in there? Then he could just push along the opposite side and hopefully with enough force, break the lock on his this horrible, tiny cell and voila, he’d be free.

With every second he didn’t feel a hinge, his breathing quickened a little more. He switched from feeling the upper corners he could reach to the ones beneath him. Still he felt nothing, no hinges, no latches. _Oh god_ , what if they’d bolted him in this thing instead? He whimpered, but moved to press the flat of his forearms against the top of the box and push. It didn’t so much as budge—if anything, and he _prayed_ he was just being paranoid… it felt like the metal was bowing _inward_ , like something very heavy was sitting atop it.

He couldn’t help it—he panicked.

Chills seeped under his skin, just as frigid as the day he’d been trapped in the cryopod. The air around him suddenly seemed much thicker and it became harder and harder for him to draw in a breath, like someone covered his face with a layer of cheesecloth. A heavy weight settled over his already-aching chest. He was hyperventilating and he knew it, but try though he might, he just couldn’t draw in a deep enough breath. His fingers and toes began to tingle, going numb.

This was it. This was how he died.

His ears began to ring and buzz loudly, and that was startling. It drowned out even the gurgling sounds of his own ragged breaths. Then his ears crackled—no, just the one ear. Lance gasped shallowly, realization cutting through the panic like a shot of adrenaline.

His comm. His comm still worked. Maybe. He just had to try.

“Hello?” he gasped out, still struggling to breathe. His voice came out so faint, even to his own ears, and he cursed himself. No one would hear him that way, and then it’d be just like the day in the airlock, where no matter how loud he screamed or how hard he begged no one could hear him and then he really _would_ die here and—

Stop. Breathe. Try again. Lance drew in another shuddering breath, relishing in the fact that it was a bit deeper than the last. He could do this.

“Can anyone hear me?” The comm still buzzed in his ear, and Lance tried to cling to that desperate hope it filled him with, even as his thoughts spiraled out of control. What if all of those blows to his head had damaged it? What if he was imagining things? What if, god forbid… what if he was the only one left? What if—

“—ance! La—ere are y—?”

If there’d been room, Lance would have leapt six feet in the air. As it were, he jerked when the comm burst into life on a scream. Relief flooded his every nerve. Keith was alive. Keith would come for him. _He wasn’t alone._

“Keith!” he called out as loud as he could. “Is that you? It’s too dark, I can’t see anything and I don’t know where I am!” He hated how terrified he sounded. Breathing came a little easier now, and he focused on that while he waited for a response.

For a long moment, none came.

Lance strained his ears to hear anything, _anything_ , over the buzzing. He thought he could hear Keith shouting, signs of a struggle. Then silence. Lance’s heart picked up again. Keith wasn’t hurt, was he? He couldn’t be. He had to be fine. The longer the silence stretched on, the more despair creeped up on him.

“Keith,” he whimpered. “Say something. Please still be there, _please don’t leave me alone…_ ” A tear slipped past the corner of his eye, slid down his temple and dripped onto the box beside his ear.

“I’m—ere,” Keith’s voice rang through. Lance couldn’t stifle the sob. Keith must have been quite far from him before, because the voice now was less staticky, less garbled. “I’m comi—Lance. Just hang tight, alrig—?”

“Okay,” Lance whispered. “Please hurry.”

How pathetic, being reduced to a quaking, frightened mess by a bit of dark and quiet. It was getting warm in the box, too, sweat on his brow and down between his bruised shoulder blades. He really had no idea how long he’d been out, how long he’d been in the box before he woke. How much air he had left.

Keith seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he said, “Try to breathe—lowly, Lance. I’m—ill trying to find where—uried you. You have t—ave your air.”

“ _Buried_ me?” Lance choked out. Oh god, it was even worse than he imagined. As if it weren’t bad enough that he was _trapped_ in an airtight _box_ that he likely was _nailed into_ , now he was _buried_ god knows how many feet under?

“Shit,” Keith hissed into the comm. Lance realized belatedly his breathing had picked up again, strangled rasps the only noise leaving him. “ _Breathe_ , Lance! Don’t hyperven—!”

“I c-can’t!” Lance wheezed. “I can’t breathe!”

“You can!” Keith insisted. His voice was even clearer than before—he had to be getting closer, right? “You’re not going to suffocate. Do you hear me? I’m getting you out of there. I swear it. But you _have to keep breathing_.”

More tears streamed down either side of Lance’s face. Without thinking, he made to clench his broken hands into fists, only regretting it a second later as fire raced up his arms. A pained wail escaped his lips as he drew both hands to his chest, cradling them there as he gasped desperately for air.

“Lance, please,” Keith begged, desperation clear in his tone. Lance heard him panting, like he was running, and it didn’t help. It only reminded him how trapped he was. “You… you’re from Cuba, right? You lived near a beach. You told us about it once. About how the sand stretches as far as the eye can see. Can you think about that beach for me?”

Lance couldn’t find the words to respond, but he gave a tight nod, even though Keith couldn’t see it. Keith kept talking. “You told us how you missed the feeling of sand between your toes, the surf washing up shells and starfish. Remember how Hunk said he was afraid of the ocean, because he was afraid he’d get eaten by a shark or something?”

If Lance had it in him, he’d have laughed. He remembered that conversation all too well—the way Hunk shuddered as he admitted that, the way Pidge’s face lit up as she laughed and poked and teased. Remebered the incredulous looks on all their faces when he told them all that sharks were really just sea puppies.

“And Shiro told us about the time he got stung by a jellyfish,” Keith continued. “We had to draw Allura and Coran a picture of the jellyfish, and we found out there were jellyfish on Altea. But they called them something different. Don’t ask me what it was, I can’t pronounce it.” He was definitely rambling now, and his voice was hoarse, but Lance didn’t care either way. He found that the more Keith spoke, the less tight his chest felt. That the rough cadence of Keith’s voice helped keep him calm, and less like he was drowning.

He definitely felt calmer, and his breathing slowed at last. His head spun like he’d just come off a tilt-a-whirl, and a wave of exhaustion slammed into him. He just felt so _drained_.

He blinked heavily, trying to force his eyes to keep peering into the darkness. At least he wasn’t hyperventilating anymore. But it still seemed like he wasn’t getting enough air. Every slow draw seemed to give him less and less, and—oh.

“Keith, I…” he breathed, his voice barely audible. “I’m so tired.”

Keith gasped on the other end of the comm, a quiet and startled thing. “You have to stay awake! I’m almost there, Lance, just _don’t go to sleep_!”

“Sorry, Keith…” he murmured. He tried, he really did—but his eyes slid shut against his will, and he couldn’t open them again.

“Don’t you dare give up on me now!” Keith cried. Lance could barely make out a scratching noise. Keith’s voice was getting so faint, even though Lance knew he was so much closer now than he was before. “Lance? _Lance!_ ”

 _I’m scared_ , he wanted to say. But his tongue felt so heavy, and his brain felt so, so foggy. Keith’s shouts turned to screams, but they grew distant in Lance’s ear, until he could hear nothing over the rising ringing in his ears.

And then he could hear nothing at all.

\---

“No, no, nonono,” Keith panted, sprinting faster. He was so close. He was _right there_. Lance couldn’t die now. He just _couldn’t_.

He’d long since lost track of how long he’d searched. This planet was so foreign to him, the expanse of area he’d searched for Lance so vast already that despair mounted more and more. But if he kept Lance talking, kept him breathing, then he could buy himself some time. And it’d worked, for a time. Until Lance stopped responding.

Keith doubled his efforts then. He had no idea what constituted for a tack, but if it was anything similar to a click, he had to be in the right area. He scanned as far as his eyes could see against the barren earth, squinting against what had to be the late evening sun.

“Come on, man, talk to me,” he called for what felt like the hundredth time. In the distance, he spotted a grove of withered trees, the only significant landmark he’d seen in ages. That _had_ to be it. It’d already been almost half a varga since Lance went silent—he couldn’t fathom the alternative, if he was wrong.

Sure enough—and Keith expelled a relieved sigh—there in the center of the trees was a mound of earth, clearly disturbed and recently abandoned.

“I’m here, Lance,” Keith said into the comm, wasting no time in tearing into the dirt with the shovel he’d thought to bring. “Just hang on.” _Please don’t be dead._ Firey pain spread through his ribs with every shovel full of dirt, and he was pretty sure he might be doing even more damage to them, but he didn’t care. He could live with broken ribs. Lance… Lance didn’t have the time for him to stop and deal with the pain.

The clank of the spade against the container sounded like heaven to Keith’s ears, and he tossed aside the shovel, leaping down into the pit and desperately shoving the remaining dirt to the side. Keith hadn’t stopped to look at his own prison box, but Lance’s lacked any hinges; instead, it was bolted shut around the perimeter of the container. He gave it a tentative smack; it rang hollowly, the same ring as the container he’d been in.

Good.

Keith felt around the edge, looking for a gap. It was too narrow for him to slip his fingers in between and try to pry the lid open, and it was too dangerous to try with the head of spade. Keith groaned—punching _into_ the box was an entirely different story than punching his way _out_ of it, but at this point, Keith didn’t exactly have many other options.

He brought the elbow of his already bleeding arm down as close to one end of the box as possible, praying that he got the end with Lance’s feet and not his face. He could just hear Lance’s voice in his head— _not in the moneymaker, dude!_ —and he barked out a hysterical laugh.

It took several more strikes to bust through the metal this time, cautious not to punch through too hard and accidentally hurt Lance. When at last the metal gave through, he cursed—the jagged edge cut into Lance’s cheek. He made quick work of prying back the metal, paying no attention as his hands were sliced to ribbons.

Lance’s skin was clammy and covered in a sheen of sweat when Keith made to pull him carefully from the hole, careful not to drag any more of him against the torn edge of the sheet metal. He hoisted him over his shoulder, ribs screaming in pain all the while, and laid him on the ground beside the pit before hoisting himself out beside him.

“I’m here, Lance. Come on, man,” Keith said, scooting Lance’s head into his lap and patting his cheek firmly. “You’re good now, you’re out of there. Breathe for me.”

Lance didn’t stir. Keith pressed two fingers against the side of his wrist, desperate to feel a pulse. There was one, thready and faint, and his chest still rose and fell, albeit in worringly irregular intervals. Keith patted his face a little harder, blood smearing with the tears and sweat and soil that stained his cheeks.

“Please, Lance, don’t… don’t do this to me.” Keith couldn’t help the shuddering breath that racked his shoulders. Couldn’t help the tears that burned his eyes. Any number of things could possibly be wrong that kept Lance from waking—brain damage from oxygen deprivation, or a concussion from the vivid bruise blossoming on Lance’s temple, or internal bleeding, or—a sob slipped out. He couldn’t help it.

“Wake up, _please_.”

Lance had to wake up. Keith couldn’t bear it if he lost any more of his family. 

How long he sat there, hunched over Lance’s prone form, Keith didn’t know. Distantly, he recognized that he was in no shape to fight and hoped against hope that no one spotted them there. But he could focus on little more than the tremulous breaths Lance took. Tears of his own dripped onto Lance’s face, streaking through the muck.

The sun had begun to dip further down the horizon, when Lance finally stirred. 

At first Keith thought he imagined it. The pitiful groan, the flicker of lashes against ashen cheeks. But then Lance’s eyes opened, gazing blearily into Keith’s wretched face. 

“Keith…?” 

A strangled cry of relief tore its way from Keith’s throat. “Oh thank God,” he croaked. “You’re okay, Lance. You’re okay.” He helped Lance up into a sitting position, only to fling him arms around him and pull him into the tightest hug he could muster. They both groaned at the pain, but still Keith hung on. 

“You’re okay.” 

And no matter what happened from there, as long as Lance was okay, so was Keith.


End file.
